Less than a year ago, my good friend Adam Kayce decided to change careers.

For years Adam was a successful intuitive healer and teacher who helped countless people work with and heal their personal issues and physical diseases. As a teacher, Adam could explain the most complex ideas about consciousness and healing to people in ways that were easy to understand.

It was as a teacher that Adam got his first experiences working with businesses. Soon, he was focusing more on bringing spirituality and personal development into the workplace. And he loved it.

So this past fall, Adam decided to close down his healing practice and begin working as a business coach. Now his focus is on helping people find the “purpose and meaning behind their work, so you can attract and serve the people who love what you do.” (his words).

And so was born, Monk at Work.

Why did I tell you this story (other than Adam being a close friend)? Well, in our latest one2one conversation, Liz Strauss asked me…

What do you do when your business is going well and close friend’s is not?

My answer…YOU HELP!

What else could I possibly say?

Like most new business, Adam had to endure the early, lean stages of Monk at Work. All the pieces were in place - knowledge, experience, expertise, great service and products, and…great looking blog (if I do say so myself). What he lacked was clients.

That’s where I knew I could help. I knew that I could use my own success to help my friend get started toward his. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the core of my work is to help businesses go from where they are to where they want to be.

Adam consulted with me on blogging, marketing strategy and relationship building. We talked a bunch about how to use the conversations on his blog to create momentum around your business. We talked about blogging as a central marketing strategy. I helped him with solutions for increasing his website and product reach. I even introduced him to people who are now fans of his work.

More than anything, I think what I’ve done is help Adam understand how his website/blog are the foundation for his marketing efforts. And now, Monk at Work is building momentum. Am I responsible for that - not really. He still had to put what we talked about into practice. I simply filled in his gaps in knowledge and helped him focus his efforts using his website/blog.

Do you have a good friend who’s struggling with their business? What can you do to help them?Â

And Liz, since we’re having a one2one conversation,

What tips can you offer for writing quality, conversational blog posts and website copy?Â

We all want more traffic to our websites, right?

We dream of the day that we get that massive wave from Digg or StumbleUpon. And when we do, it’s a rush, right? We watch our stats climb by the minute - 500….1,000….5,000….10,000 visitors - “oh God, don’t let it end!”

But it does end. It ends as an ocean wave ends: breaking on the shore, splashing its wake up the sands and retreating once more to whence it came. Such it is with our blog traffic.

These social content sites are great, don’t get me wrong. And I’m not suggesting not to use them. I use them and will continue too. But the deluge of traffic they bring can often give us a false sense of our blog’s health.

Essential Keystrokes’ Char wrote about this recently in her Web Traffic - I’ll Take Quality Over Quantity. In her post, she explained how the traffic she got from Digg in a recent post was matched, and in quality perhaps surpassed, by a link in a post from a prominent blogger like Darren Rowse.

Now, don’t run out and link to Darren or Brian Clark thinking that’s the way to get traffic. Though it could be if you’re doing what Char does - write great content. Which is why Darren picked up her link.

But how did Darren find Char to link too? The relationship, of course. Darren had to know Char exists in order to find a link to her. That begins with the relationship.

Same is true of another good friend, Adam Kayce at Monk at Work. Recently, he had a post picked up by lifehack.org. Adam’s blog is fairly new, yet growing at a nice rate. However, when he got picked up by lifehacker, he got a nice, large traffic blip with a number of first-time commenters. His traffic has increased by a nice rate since. But most interesting is that his feed subscribers almost doubled in the few days after.

So even though social content sites are certainly useful, it seems that writing great content and building relationships is the key to building traffic.

What’s been your experiences? Am I right….wrong….short-sighted….somewhere in between?

One thing I can say about myself is I don’t stand still much. It seems I’m always to understand more of what and why I think, feel and believe the way I do.

In my personal life, I don’t often rest on good enough. Instead, I strive to be a better man, a better husband, a better parent, a better son, a better friend, and a better neighbor. And in my spirituality, I constantly find myself working through issues that limit me from the deepest understandings of my soul and its relationship to my Creator.

In business, it’s much the same way. While I know quite a bit about business websites development, marketing strategy and copywriting, I still strive to learn more - always pushing my envelope.

It was just about a year ago that I decide to find out what blogging is all about. So I found out how to use RSS, got a reader and started watching blogs - learning as much as I could from the bloggers I enjoyed.

Now, I didn’t ‘need’ to blog. My business was doing great and I had more still to share with my clients. Yet, I wanted to know what blogging was all about. And soon, I discovered that blogging was, perhaps, the most powerful (or at least accessible) method for building interest in your business then anything yet created. And…you could do it on the cheap.

So I pushed. And now, I have a pretty successful blog myself, my business is thriving, and doors are opening all around me for expansion. To top it off, I’ve also made some amazing friendships and partnerships with bloggers that four or five months ago I didn’t know. Incredible, really.

So when my dear friend Adam Kayce tagged me a little while back asking me about my learning edge, it gave me a chance to think a bit about where I’ve been and where I’m heading.

In the meantime, I checked out the other folks that have been tagged on this meme like, Edward Mills, Ben Yoskovitz, Jean Browman, Daily Triathlete, Eve, Evelyn Rodriguez, Sue Melone, and the dear Colleen Wainwright from Communicatrix. They each wrote some great posts on where they’re stretching.

For me, I’ve read a fair amount. Though less than I used to with two kids under 4 years old. I read lots of blogs daily and manage a number of great phone conversations each week; constantly exploring how to better build my business (and my client’s) through blogging and social media.

I’ve learned a ton about using social media in the past year since watching blogs - and even more in the past six months since I’ve been blogging. And so now it’s time to push the envelope even wider.

Now I want to bring together the parts of social media - social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, ma.ganolia), social networking (e.g. Linkedin, MyBlogLog, Facebook), social recommendation (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape) and social content (YouTube, Flickr) - together into a program that will help service-based business owners grow their businesses sustainably and with authenticity.

I’m using social networks more and more - learning everything I can about how they work and how they can aid business growth. I’ve read 15 books on blogging. Most were pretty useless - though I got something out of Clear Blogging, Publish & Prosper, and What No One Ever Tells you About Blogging and Podcasting and Naked Conversations. And, as I’ve written about, I absolutely loved Lorelle’s Blogging Tips.

I’ve also read a few books on on social media and social marketing such as Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing, Mark Hughes’ Buzz Marketing, and, of course, Seth Godin’s books and the Cluetrain Manifesto. And I’ve got Ben McConnell’s books, Citizen Marketers & Creating Customer Evangelists, along with Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media coming from Amazon.

As for blogs I regularly read ProBlogger, Copyblogger, David Armano, Lee Odden, Chris Garrett, Andy Beard and the guys at Pronet Advertising - along with a search responses I find daily in my reader.

In thinking about using social media - social bookmarketing, social networking, etc - who do you read and how has it helped you utilize these services to grow your business?Â

And to David, Char, Gayla, Stuart, Dave, Dylan, Randa and Chris I’d like to know what you’re current learning edge is. Find out more about this meme at Adam’s site.

We all know the expression, “the glass is half…”

But how would you finish it? What do you see when you look inside the glass?

Some see abundance which overflowth. While others see the glass as having room for more. And so began the Starbucker Meme, with Terry and his half-full, clear shot glass.

The Starbucker Meme brought out some creative answers like my dear friend Carolyn Manning who keeps two glasses - one full to the brim and the other symbolically empty. Tim Johnson, on the other hand goes back and forth between overflowing and 50% full.

The answer I was waiting most for was Liz Strauss and her hand-painted French champagne flute filled to the lip with sparkly French champagne. No surprise for me, and deeply fitting. Or Chris Cree who said his cup is bottomless - of course he said with coffee, but I know he meant a bit more.

My other two favorites were from Mike Sansone and Adam Kayce. Both, like me, took the idea of ‘what’s in the glass’ to a different level. Mike sees things from a different perspective through his glass bottom boat. While Adam sees his life overflowing through his looking glass.

So I know what you’re thinking…”what does Dawud see when he looks through his glass?” So let me get right into the Starbucker Meme:

1. How full is your glass?
   It’s ever expanding and only limited by my trust, belief and willingness to change.
2. What kind of glass is it?
   Blown glass
3. What’s in the glass?
   All the possibilities you can dream of.
4. Reasons for #1, #2, and #3
   Read on…

I’ve always loved blown glass. Not only is it stunningly beautiful. It also illustrates the great potential each of us have inside. Think about it. You take this hunk of glass and put it on a stick. Pretty uninspiring, huh?

Then, you place the hunk of glass into a raging fire to heat it up and burn off impurities. Once it’s purified enough, you remove it from the fire and begin forming it into miraculous, endless shapes. Look at the image to right…

Aren’t we just like that?

And Kammie, there’s the answer to your question about high vibe practices. I spend each day trying to stretch myself, my heart and my consciousness just a little bit. Stretching a taking the time to look at where I could be living who I am and what I believe a little bit more. Those are my high vibe practices.

So I’m wondering what you see when you look inside your glass? I’m going to tag David, David, Gayla, Edward, Chris, Mark, Dave, Katie, Rory, Randa, Mike, Kammie, one more Dave and Lisa. AND, I’d love to hear your thoughts below.

I’ve always loved the feeling that a good string of words can incite. Whether a quote from a speech, a line in a book or a poem, I can easily be moved into a deeply contemplative space.

So it’s no surprise that I love song lyrics. Don’t get my wrong, I love the music behind the lyrics. But if I want music I’ll listen to classical or jazz - gotta love Monk on the ivories; Bird, Trane, Hawk or Sonny blowin’ sax or Charlie Mingus workin’ the bass. Then there’s Miles. But we’re not talkin’ jazz right now, we’re talking lyrics (okay, I know Bessie, Ella and Billie were amazing).

So Phil, there’s a taste of some of the music that makes my heart sing. But not always. I love jazz, but only when it feels right. For me to listen to Monk or Miles, I’ve gotta be with it. I’ve gotta feel it inside as though each note is waking up parts of my soul. That’s just the way jazz is for me.

But I’m not always in that place. Sometimes it’s the words in a song I want to inspire me. And that’s where it all gets tricky for me to express.

As my dear friend Adam Kayce knows, I’ve got tons of song lyrics packed away in my brain. And sometimes they just come flying out when he least expects them.

It’s actually difficult for me to pick one, or even five, songs that make my heart sing. Hilda asked for only one song to make thing easy on Joanna, Phil, Judith, Terry, Kirsten, Karen, Claire and the others she tagged. But I’m with Judith, I’m not finding this easy at all.

Why? Well, like Becca and Animaitaliana, there’s just so many options it’s hard to narrow it down. And because the music that makes my heart sing changes greatly with the mood I’m in. Truthfully, I love everything from the Blues to John Denver; Motown to Toad the Wet Sprocket; early 80’s rap to Prince, R&B and funk to Elton John and James Taylor. What I mostly don’t enjoy is Country, modern pop, and hip-hop.

In tagging me Adam mentioned he’s got 1800 plus songs in his iTunes. Well my iPod is carrying around over 5000 songs right now and iTunes tells me that’s about 30 days worth of music. The newest music I’m carrying is from Christine Kane - who I met, and heard, for the first time live at SOBCon07. She’s truly lovely - as a person, a songwriter and a performer. And I really enjoy her storytelling.

Okay, okay…maybe I am stalling. So I’ll share with you what I was listening to yesterday as I worked.

There’s no secret that I deeply love my wife and that I’m constantly striving to be a better husband, a better man, for her. One artist that inspires me from time to time is Brian McKnight. His lyrics, his voice, his expression all speak to my heart. Since I rarely listen to the radio anymore, I don’t know which of is songs are popular. But one of my many favorites is Never Felt This Way:

There will never come a day
you’ll ever hear me say
that I want and need to be without you.
I want to give my all.

Baby, just hold me.
Simply control me.
‘Cuz your arms, they keep away the lonelies.

(chorus)
When I look into your eyes
then I relize
that all I need is you in my life.
All I need is you in my life.
‘Cuz I’ve never felt this way about lovin’.
Never felt so good.
Never felt this way about lovin’
It feels so good.

How it takes my breath,
starts a pounding in my chest,
makes me weak, when I think about you.
Makes me wanna give my all,
Life wouldn’t mean a thing.
Not a happy song to sing,
just emptiness if I had to live without you.

(repeat chorus)

‘Cuz I’ve never felt this way about lovin’, darlin’
Never felt so good.
Never felt this way about lovin’
It feels so good. woo!

But it’s not just the lyrics. Listen to the delivery, the timing, the way he expresses the lyrics…

[audio:http://dmiracle.com/wp-content/audio/Never-Felt-This-Way.mp3]

Then there’s Discovery:

So now that I have seen
An angel spread it’s wings
Go on, lay me down
I can die now
Every since you came around
There’s a new love found

[audio:http://dmiracle.com/wp-content/audio/Discovery.mp3]

And since I’m certainly not perfect, I love So Sorry:

For all the wasted time that we cannot replace.
For everytime that a discussion turned into an argument, we’d fight.
Hey, how I wish that I could have it back tonight.

I’m so sorry for anything I might have done.
And I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt the only one,
And I’m sorry, the best laid plans sometimes fall through,
For anything that I might’ve done, I apologize to you.

[audio:http://dmiracle.com/wp-content/audio/So-Sorry.mp3]

So there you get a taste of my sentimental, openly emotional and soft side. Thanks for the space to share.

Now, I have to tag a few people I’d love to hear from - David Airey, Liz Strauss, Christine Kane (what one song truly inspires you?), Chris Cree (and Gorgeous too), Wendy, David, Char, Gayla, Carma, Randa, Lauren, Edward, Ben, Mark, Lorelle, and Scoble (Robert, this seems right up your alley).

And you…what song(s) inspire you? Lift your spirits? Express how you feel? Or just get the blood flowing? I’d really love to know…